1. Field
The present invention relates generally to communication systems, and, more specifically, to a method and apparatus for policy control enhancement in a wireless communication system.
2. Background
Wireless communication technologies have seen explosive growth over the past several years. This growth has been primarily fueled by wireless services providing freedom of movement to the communicating public as opposed to being “tethered” to a hard-wired communication system. It has further been fueled by the increasing quality and speed of voice and data communications over the wireless medium, among other factors. As a result of these enhancements in the communications field, wireless communications has had, and will continue to have, a significant impact on a growing number of the communicating public.
Typically, a mobile station communicating in a wireless communication system is afforded various types of communication services, which may include SIP-based services, stream-based (streaming) services, among other types of services. The mobile station will usually generate a resource reservation request for a particular communication service, and the resource request is either accepted or rejected based upon policy control as determined by a policy decision function (PDF) that is specific to the type of service requested by the mobile station. The policy decision function will typically make a policy decision on the mobile station's resource request based at least in part upon a user profile associated with the mobile station making the resource request and network policy. Generally, however, the policy decision function does not have direct access to the user profile of the mobile station making the resource request since it is usually not involved in the user authentication process.
The resource request generated by the mobile station is typically received at a packet data serving node (PDSN), which forwards the resource request to a policy decision function (PDF) that makes a policy decision of whether to grant the resource request to the mobile station. As mentioned, each policy decision function is service-specific, and only makes policy decisions for resource requests of a specific type of communication service that it handles. For example, a mobile station may request a certain amount of bandwidth allocation from the wireless communication system for a streaming service. The policy control for the allocation of bandwidth for streaming service is handled by a particular policy decision function of the network; whereas another policy decision function may handle resource requests for another type of communication service (such as SIP-based services, for example).
A problem that occurs is that the packet data serving node is typically ignorant of the communication resource request service type requested by the mobile station. Consequently, the packet data serving node is not aware of which policy decision function to contact to handle the specific type of resource request initiated by the mobile station, which may decrease the expediency in which the resource request is handled. Another problem that exists is that, since the policy decision function needs to obtain the requesting mobile station's user profile to make a policy decision, the PDF's policy decision on the mobile's resource request may be impeded as a result of not having direct access to the mobile's user profile because the PDF is not involved in the user authentication process.
The present invention is directed to overcoming, or at least reducing the effects of, one or more problems indicated above.